HBC Peewees lose 3-2 heartbreaker in Game 5

By Pat Payton
It was a heartbreaker for the Home Building Centre A-E Peewees Sunday afternoon at the PRC.
A goal with just 21.2 seconds left to play snapped a 2-2 deadlock and lifted the Lambeth Lancers to a 3-2 victory over Reg Clinton’s squad. The win gave the Lancers the best-of-five Shamrock League semi-final series three games to two.
Four of the five games in the series were decided by just one goal–including the final three. There wasn’t much to choose between two evenly-matched teams.
In Sunday’s deciding game, Lambeth opened the scoring early in the first period and then went up 2-0 with a shorthanded goal at 8:20 of the middle frame. The breakaway goal came just nine seconds into a Lancers’ penalty.
For the first half of the contest, Lambeth limited the Rock to just a few quality scoring chances. However, as the game progressed, St. Marys started getting more and more opportunities.
With just 4.7 seconds left in the second period, Simon Greig got the home team on the scoreboard with a nice powerplay goal. Connor Wheeler set up his linemate with a perfect centring pass.
The HBC crew continued to attack, and Greig tied the score 2-2 at 5:51 of the third from Sam Johnson. The goal came just seconds after a Lancers’ penalty expired.
With 2:39 remaining, Lambeth picked up an interference penalty. Danny Switzer hit a goal post with just under two minutes left–one of several good chances that the Rock generated. Finally, with time running down, a lengthy Lancers rush resulted in the winning goal.
“It was a tough way to lose,” coach Clinton said. “The boys had to pick up their physical play and they responded.
“We had to play defensively for the first half of the game, and then played offence the second half. I thought we had more gas in the tank than them, but then it gets down to a one-shot game. Their’s went in and our’s didn’t.
“The boys did well this year. They learned a lot and played hard. They toughened up as the season went on. We were in every game this season, except for two. We battled hard even in the games that we lost,” he added.
On Sunday, captain Nathan Wolfkamp and Simon Taylor both had strong games on the blue line for St. Marys.